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City settles in election sign lawsuit

Three months after the Spring Hill local election, city officials have admitted to enforcing a campaign sign ordinance that should no longer be on the books.

The city settled a lawsuit with George Jones earlier this month after discovering an ordinance that prevented the former mayoral candidate from having more than one campaign sign per property during the April election should have been removed from the city’s municipal code in 2009, City Administrator Victor Lay said.

In December that year, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved revising the city’s sign ordinance, including deleting the line that read, “there may be one small yard sign per lot per political office,” according to meeting minutes.

“It was part of a much bigger thing they were doing,” Lay said. “They were revising the entire sign ordinance. That change was one of many renditions and changes. In codification, it got left in.”

Spring Hill code enforcement officers had asked Jones to take down some of his signs during the election season, and Jones filed a restraining order against the city in March as a way to leave them up.

At the time, Jones said the ordinance was unconstitutional because it limited free speech, and he should be able to put multiple signs in one yard.

“If two people live in the same house, and they have a different mayor they wanted, one can’t put a sign up,” Jones said Monday. “That’s what it boils down to.”

Jones received the restraining order March 6, and Maury County Circuit Judge Robert L. Holloway granted him permission to leave the signs up until the court had a hearing to determine if the ordinance restricted free speech.

However, since the ordinance was supposed to have been removed, the city settled with Jones and agreed to pay his court fees, Lay said.

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